The film follows a masked lunatic who escapes a small-town insane asylum where patients are subjected to bizarre drug experiments.

BD: Where did the idea of PINK EYE come from?

JT: Joshua Nelson, my producing partner, had this idea since he was in high school. He had written the first draft of the script years ago. Some years went by then, he started working with another filmmaker, they planned on making it in the late 1990's but the production did not get off the ground, so Joshua put the whole idea back on the shelve. When he and I started talking about a new film, he showed me the script and I thought it would work. I thought the main character was really different and the dialog was strong. I made a few suggestions about the script and we went back and forth a bit polishing up the story and the characters.

Originally, the lead character was to be played by an actor who was an albino, he was cast as Edgar but once we started moving forward with the film in 2006, we were not able to find him. After a long and troubled search for another albino actor to play the lead, we decided to make Edgar's character with some special FX help and some strong acting. On a side note, we learned that it's not so easy to find real albino actors that would play a villain in a film. We discovered along the way as we tried to cast this film, that there are a number of groups that fight against negative images of albinos in film and television. These groups have almost all but eliminated any negative images of albinos in films over the years. The down side is that it seems they have blocked any acting work, at all, for albino actors.

BD: Have you been a horror fan all your life?

JT: Yes, I have always liked horror films. All the big horror films, I tried to see them all, Exorcist, Psycho, Alien, The Shining, Rosemary's Baby, etc. I remember the early days of VHS, we would rent every horror film we could find. We always went for the low budget stuff, the lower the better, like Crazy Fat Ethel, Mother Day, 555, Motel Hell, Ms. 45, anything low budget. When I first started making low budget films, I never realized why I was able to so easily fit into these types of films. These were the films I always liked the most, I guess I felt at home and free to do what I like. I also love character driven crime dramas, like The Godfather, Scarface, The King Of New York, and I have spent so much time over the years trying to raise money to direct bigger crime dramas, but I was never able to close a funding deal. So I always ended up returning to my roots, low budget horror. When necessary, I could always green light my own project or direct a low budget work for hire for a local distributor.

BD: What films or directors inspired you and the film?

JT: Abel Ferrara is the main director that inspired me. He made me want to direct. As for Pink Eye, this film was really inspired by the 1980 style horror films. We tried hard to get that great feel of 80's horror.

BD: Just how bloody and gory is PINK EYE?

JT: The opening scene is the bloodiest, but we do have scenes of gore and blood spread throughout the entire film.

BD: What are some things horror fans can look forward to in the film?

JT: Blood, women, good acting and some scares. When we create a horror film, we hope it's a story that viewers enjoy and are drawn into. We get there by making what we would want to see, something different with good acting and a strong story and then we hope for the best.

BD: You’ve been directing for quite some time, how was this experience as opposed to some of the others?

JT: I like to take lots of time for planning and storyboarding when I’m gearing up to direct a film. This film went a littler faster and rushed, as far as planning time than I would have liked. Sometimes you have to strike when the iron is hot. We had a small window of time to get this great location for the film. It was a real mental hospital in NYC, they have an unused floor in one of the main buildings, it was the 14 or 15th floor. We rented that floor out for the shoot. That was by far the most realistic location I have ever directed on, it had a feeling. All the pain and emptiness in those rooms, it was something else. That hospital really got all the actors into character, you cannot beat realism as a tool for motivation. One of my director tricks for working with actors, that I use as a last resort, when all my words fail, is to use some outside physical stimulus as motivation to get the response I'm after. For this film, on the mental hospital location, motivation was every place you looked. I want to do another film, but on a much larger scale in the same location, there so much pain left behind those walls.

BD: What do you have planned next? More horror? What can you reveal?

JT: We do have some horror films in the planning stages, but those are going to take larger budgets, we are trying to make all our next horror films bigger. Our plans for horror is to step up the production values, so that takes more time to raise funding. We are planning a film festival project that might shoot at the end of the year, it's not horror though. I am also developing a few Internet series, for my new site at www.onwebproductions.com. These first few series are all character driven dramas. There's so much comedy on the Internet, it's flooded with comedy. I think the time is right to start creating quality content made for the Internet. Content that has serious acting, high production values and drama. Network quality productions that people can watch on the web for free. The series I create will ultimately be sponsor-supported programs. I see the Internet like the early days of television, where sponsors openly backed programs, that's our plan for OnWeb Productions. To get this going my wife and I are financing the first few series ourselves. I fully believe that Internet video is a big part of the future of entertainment. The Internet will not replace movies, television or DVD, the Internet it just another venue for viewers to get their entertainment. And yes, we will create a few horror series as our programs progress.

BD: What is the exact release plans for PINK EYE? What cities will get to see it in theaters?

JT: Here's a link to some more info on the release of Pink Eye.

BD: What are the DVD release plans? Extra features already lined up?

JT: We do have some extras on the Pink Eye DVD, a nice behind the scenes feature of how we did it.